Christmas Bird Count day. I strain to hear something more exotic than crows and sparrows. A distant siren turns into a screech owl’s wail.
2011
12/16/2011
A small mound of dirt has appeared in front of the porch. The sky’s a mottled gray, and I try to guess which bright spot hides the sun.
12/15/2011
Two pileated woodpeckers cackle back and forth. Patches of moss at the woods’ edge seem to glow in the dim light. The smell of rain.
12/14/2011
White above, gray below—the reverse of the juncos foraging in the ditch among sedges, tear-thumb and asters, calling in small hard notes.
12/13/2011
Sun through a skim of clouds. A nuthatch and a downy woodpecker trade anxious, nasal notes between the faint shadows of the trees.
12/12/2011
Gurgle of the stream in my left ear, titmice in my right. The crunch of gravel as my dad’s Honda pulls up, silvery blue as new ice.
12/11/2011
Clear and still. In the corner of what used to a lawn across from the springhouse, the limbs of a fallen tree shine white with frost.
12/10/2011
Clear and cold. I shut my eyes against the sun, and the lace-work of tree branches reappears in white on the red canvas of my eyelids.
12/9/2011
Clouds creased above the sun’s bleary eye. On the sage leaves, hair-thin frost crystals point in all directions—a disheveled pelt.
12/8/2011
Sunny and cold. A nuthatch lands on the dead cherry and begins a close inspection of the limbs, dapper as an accountant in his gray suit.
12/7/2011
Rain. I’m mesmerized by the driveway puddles, how rings of ripples form and overlap, each raindrop magnified at the point of termination.
12/6/2011
With the leaves down I can see not only farther, but deeper: through a maze of lilac branches, I spot a rabbit when its dark eye blinks.
12/5/2011
Crows and ravens squabble over deer gut-piles in the woods. Dirt flies at the woods’ edge as a groundhog enlarges the entrance to its den.
12/4/2011
The sound of an altercation among the goldfinches—like a dozen jazz soloists playing at once. The only cloud in the sky finds the sun.